1. 1. ALSO BY WAYNE CHASE Roedy Blacks Complete Guitar Chord Poster Roedy Blacks Complete Keyboard Chord Poster Roedy Blacks Guitar & Keyboard Scales Poster Roedy Blacks Musical Instruments Poster Roedy Blacks Chord Progression Chart The Gold Standard Song List
2. 2. The Essential Handbook for Songwriters, Performers, and Music Students SECOND EDITION Wayne Chase Roedy Black Publishing Inc. Vancouver, BC, Canada Blaine, WA, USA
3. 3. Copyright 2006 by Roedy Black Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without written permission from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. How Music REALLY Works! is a serious critical study of popular songwriting technique as exemplified by various songwriters. Brief quotations of lyrics are intended to illustrate or explicate the critical argument and information presented by the author of How Music REALLY Works! and thus constitute fair use under existing copyright conventions. Cover illustration 2003 by Irene Ha. Chase, Wayne O. How music really works: the essential handbook for songwriters, performers, and music students / Wayne Chase.2nd ed. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-897311-55-9 (trade paperback) ISBN 1-897311-56-7 (PDF) The moral rights of the author have been asserted. Published by Roedy Black Publishing Inc. 46800 - Unit D, 2405 Pine Street Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, V6J 5G6 604-228-8444 604-228-8424 fax info@roedyblack.com www.RoedyBlack.com Printed in Canada. Visit this books websites: www.HowMusicReallyWorks.com www.GoldStandardSongList.com www.CompleteChords.com www.MooseNobel.com
4. 4. TO ANNA
5. 5. CONTENTS PART I THE BIG PICTURE Introduction: Yes, You Create Compelling, Emotionally Powerful Music and Lyrics ... You Know What Youre Doing 3 Intro.1 Music Notation? Not Here! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Intro.2 An Essential Skill Songwriters and Performers Lack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Intro.3 Technique First, Then Emotional Abandon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Intro.4 What You Need to Know to Understand Everything in This Book . . . . . 8 Intro.5 The Territory Ahead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1 What Music REALLY Is, Who Makes It, Where, When, Why 11 1.1 What Is Music? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 1.2 Who Makes Music? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 1.3 Where Does Music Come From? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 1.4 When Did Music Get Started? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 1.5 Why Is There Such a Thing as Music? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 2 What the Popular Music Industry REALLY Is, and Where It Came From 101 2.1 Origin of Popular Music as an Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 2.2 African American Dominance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 2.3 Your Musical Roots: How the Major Genres Emerged . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 2.4 Why Theres No Such Thing as Progress In the Arts, Including Music . 111 2.5 Musical Genres as Cultural Infrastructures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 2.6 A Brief Look at the Major Genres of Western Popular Music . . . . . . . . . . 120
6. 6. CONTENTSviii PART II ESSENTIAL BUILDING BLOCKS OF MUSIC 3 How Tones and Overtones REALLY Work 147 3.1 Tones and Their Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 3.2 Overtones: The Harmonic Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 3.3 How Musical Instruments Work (Including the Voice) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 3.4 Tone Properties and Their Emotional Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 4 How Scales and Intervals REALLY Work 177 4.1 Scales: Brain-averse, Brain-friendly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 4.2 Intervals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 4.3 Interval Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 4.4 Emotional Effects of Intervals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 5 How Keys and Modes REALLY Work 223 5.1 Scales from Around the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 5.2 The Modes: Scales of the Diatonic Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 5.3 Keys, Major and Minor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 5.4 Tuning, Temperament, and Transposing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 5.5 Modulation and Tonality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 PART III HOW TO CREATE EMOTIONALLY POWERFUL MUSIC AND LYRICS 6 How Chords and Chord Progressions REALLY Work 283 6.1 Where Chords Come From . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 6.2 Triads and Sevenths: The Foundation of All Western Tonal Harmony . . . 290 6.3 Introduction to Chord Progressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 6.4 The Nashville Number System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
7. 7. CONTENTS ix 6.5 The Four Types of Chord Progressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316 6.6 Scales of Chords? Yes! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 6.7 Inside the Circular Harmonic Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348 6.8 Chase Charts: Chord Progression Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362 6.9 Chase Charts of the Four Types of Chord Progressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371 6.10 Examples: Chase Charts of Great Songs without Modulation or Chromatic Chords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382 6.11 Examples: Chase Charts of Great Songs without Modulation, with Chromatic Chords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407 6.12 Modulation Ways and Means . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420 6.13 Examples: Chase Charts of Great Songs with Modulation, without Chromatic Chords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429 6.14 Examples: Chase Charts of Great Songs with Modulation and Chromatic Chords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443 6.15 When Chord Progressions Go Bad ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449 6.16 What About Chord Progressions Based on the Church Modes? . . . . . . . . 453 6.17 Chords and Chord Progressions: Maximizing Emotional Impact . . . . . . 462 6.18 10 Chord Progression Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466 7 How Beat, Pulse, Meter, Tempo, and Rhythm REALLY Work 473 7.1 Evolution, the Brain, and Rhythm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473 7.2 Your Brains Evolved Memory Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475 7.3 Beat vs Pulse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484 7.4 Types of Pulse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489 7.5 Meter and Time Signature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494 7.6 Varieties of Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498 7.7 Tempo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514 7.8 Rhythm, the Soul of Melody . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 522 7.9 Meter and Rhythm in Popular vs Classical Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532 7.10 Meter, Tempo, and Rhythm: Unity and Variety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536 8 How Phrase and Form REALLY Work 541 8.1 Distinguishing Between VM (Vocal-melodic) Phrases and Structural Phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541 8.2 Why Binary Structure Is the Soul of Great Popular Song Form . . . . . . . . 545 8.3 Other Matters of Phrase and Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558 8.4 Form: Unity, Variety, and Emotional Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563
8. 8. CONTENTSx 9 How Melody and Melody-harmony Integration REALLY Work 567 9.1 Evolution, Music, and Emotional Arousal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567 9.2 Melody, Memory, and Memes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575 9.3 Melodic Unity and Coherence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578 9.4 Tune and Chord Progression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580 9.5 VM Phrases Within Structural Phrases: From Weill and Brecht to Bowie and Beck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585 9.6 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Tunes (#1): Dont Let Your Comfort Zone Select Certain Song Elements . . . . . . . . . 598 9.7 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Tunes (#2): Recognize the Primacy of Rhythm Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 602 9.8 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Tunes (#3): Use Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 604 9.9 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Tunes (#4): Use the Same Rhythm Pattern with Multiple Melodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607 9.10 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Tunes (#5): Mix Up Steps, Leaps, and Repeats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 609 9.11 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Tunes (#6): Mix Up Note Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 614 9.12 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Tunes (#7): Use Modulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 616 9.13 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Tunes (#8): Use Non-chord (Non-harmonic) Tones on Accented Beats . . . . . . . . . . . 617 9.14 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Tunes (#9): Use Modal Scales with Diatonic Chords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621 9.15 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Tunes (#10): Incorporate a (Repeating) Melodic Climax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623 9.16 Putting It All Together: A Suggested Approach to Composing Tunes . . . 628 9.17 Melody: Unity, Variety, and Emotional Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 636 10 How Lyrics REALLY Work 641 10.1 Evolution and Language: The Biology of Lyrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 641 10.2 Lyrics in Semantic Space: The Central Importance of EPA . . . . . . . . . . . 645 10.3 Lyrical Emotion: Choice of Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 650 10.4 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Lyrics (#1): Use Four Essential Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 658 10.5 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Lyrics (#2): Use a High Proportion of Personal Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 659 10.6 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Lyrics (#3): Use a High Proportion of Personal Sentences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 663 10.7 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Lyrics (#4): Prefer Concrete Symbols and Imagery to Abstract Ideas and Concepts . . 666
9. 9. CONTENTS xi 10.8 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Lyrics (#5): Sail Beyond the Horizon of Logic and the Real WorldBut Use the Wundt Curve to Chart Your Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 668 10.9 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Lyrics (#6): Know How to Proportion Unique Content-words, Function-words, and Repeated Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674 10.10 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Lyrics (#7): Live for Parallel Construction, Die for Parallel Construction . . . . . . . . 676 10.11 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Lyrics (#8): Find Time to Rhyme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683 10.12 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Lyrics (#9): Adhere to the Accent-matching Law (for the Most Part) . . . . . . . . . . . 696 10.13 10 Techniques for Creating Emotionally Powerful Lyrics (#10): Dont Hesitate to Revise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 704 10.14 Putting It All Together: A Suggested Approach to Composing Lyrics . . 706 10.15 Lyrics: Unity, Variety, and Emotional Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 732 11 How Repertoire, Signature, and Performance REALLY Work 737 11.1 Repertoire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 737 11.2 Your Signature Sound and Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 745 11.3 Performing Live . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 765 11.4 Performing in the Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 774 PART IV: MAKING A LIVING IN MUSIC 12 How the Music Business and Music Entrepreneurship REALLY Work 779 12.1 Starters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 780 12.2 Your Public Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 787 12.3 Your Own Label . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 797 12.4 Indie Labels and Major Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 809 Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 821 RESOURCES AND REFERENCES Appendix 1: Roedy Blacks Chord Progression Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 825 Appendix 2: Useful Websites and Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 829
10. 10. CONTENTSxii Appendix 3: Winners of the Moose Nobel Prize in Music, 1901-2006 . . . . . . . 831 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 839 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 847 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 869
11. 11. Acknowledgments Its my pleasure to thank all those who inspired and helped me to convert a somewhat fragmented web-based First Edition of How Music REALLY Works! into this extended hard-copy Second Edition. The loving encouragement of my wife Anna Hudson, who made countless valuable comments on all chapters, kept me believing, contrary to the evidence, that the dang book would get done eventually, even as the months turned into years ... more than four years. Id also like to thank Doug Chase, Margaret Chase, Rose Blower, and Len Blower for their help on this project. The cheerfulness and enthusiasm of my friend John Swift buoyed me as I struggled to keep the book from getting totally out of hand. Other friends who contributedin variousways include Doug Eakins, Tim McDaniels, Bill Allman, and John McLaughlan. A number of musicians reviewed various chapters and made many helpful suggestions: Stephen Digger Souza, Gary Talley, Rod Copes, Alan McCann, Craig Pinegar, David Kreller, Evan Bowen, David James, John Bercik, David Thwaite, Peter Block, Robert Curtis, and Simon Williams. I am grateful to IreneHaforherbrilliantwatercolourcover illustration,andtoFiona Raven forcover layout. To those I have forgotten to thank, I offer apologies. Please see Section 7.2 on memory and its limitations.
12. 12. Advisory/Disclaimer This book provides information primarily on the art and craft of songwriting, and secondarily on marketing and promoting popular music. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher and author are not engaged in rendering legal or other professional services. If you require legal and other expert assistance, you should seek the services of a competent professional. Since this book is but one of many on the subject, you are urged to survey as much material as you can about writing and marketing your songs, recordings, and live act, and tailor the information to your individual needs. Appendix 2 lists some resources you may find useful. Every effort has been made to make this book as accurate as possible. However, there may be mistakes, both typographical and in content. Therefore, this text should be used only as a general guide and not as the ultimate source of songwriting and marketing information. Furthermore, this book contains information that is current only up to the printing date. Thepurposeof thisbookis to educateand entertain. The authorandRoedyBlack Publishing Inc. shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused, or alleged to have been caused, directly or indirectly, by the information contained in this book.
13. 13. PART I THE BIG PICTURE
14. 14. Introduction Yes, You Create Compelling, Emotionally Powerful Music and Lyrics... You Know What Youre Doing Making music should not be left to the professionals. MICHELLE SHOCKED INTRO.1 MUSIC NOTATION? NOT HERE! Most musicians play by ear. Suppose you play by ear. What use would you have for a book on musical technique full of examples in the form of music notation? Doesnt make sense. Other ways of explaining music work just as effectively. Or even better. Fluency in music, like fluency in language, does not require the ability to read or write. So, How Music REALLY Works! has no music notation.
15. 15. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!4 FIGURE 1FIGURE 1FIGURE 1FIGURE 1 A Music-Notation-FreeA Music-Notation-FreeA Music-Notation-FreeA Music-Notation-Free ZoneZoneZoneZone In case somebodyhasever advised you that learning how to read and writemusic notation will make you a better songwriter or performer, here are just a few of the many songwriters who did alright without notation skills: Irving Berlin Johnny Cash Errol Garner Jimi Hendrix Robert Johnson John Lennon Paul McCartney Muddy Waters Brian Wilson Stevie Wonder And some non-songwriters ... performers who managed to play and sing their way to glory without knowing how to read or write music: Louis Armstrong Bix Beiderbeck Dave Brubeck Glen Campbell Bing Crosby Judy Garland Kate Smith Luciano Pavarotti Elvis Presley Django Reinhardt Buddy Rich Frank Sinatra Ella Fitzgerald Chet Baker Musical skill is normal in the human species. Not a rare talent. Most people have the potential to sing and to play an instrument with reasonable competence, even if theyve never tried. Even if theyve tried and failed (usually due to inept instruction). Ability to read or write music notation has nothing to do with it. Same with songwriting. Contrary to common belief, its not a special gift. Anybody can write a song. Even a five-year-old child. But hardly anybody has one vital skill required to create brilliant, classic songs.
16. 16. INTRODUCTION 5 INTRO.2 AN ESSENTIAL SKILL SONGWRITERS AND PERFORMERS LACK The main part of this book focuses on techniques you can use to create accessible, memorable, emotionally powerful music and lyrics. The biological connection between music and emotion in the human species goes back hundreds of thousands of years, as youll see in Chapters 1 and 9. Music evolved as an emotional communication system. And 99.9% of songwriters have no idea how it works or how to exploit it. Its the essential skill they most need, and most lack. Thats why, for example, the companion to this book, the Gold Standard Song List (GoldStandardSongList.com) has only 5,000 songs on it (from a full 100 years of songwriting), instead of 5,000,000 or 500,000,000 songs. You have but one instrument at your disposal that you can use to create emotionally powerful music: the 100,000-year-old neural organ inside your skull. If you dont understand how it works musically, you have no advantage over a million other aspiring songwriters and performers. If you dont know how to manipulate certain elements of music and lyrics to evoke emotion, you will fail in the marketplace as a songwriter and as a performer of your original songs. Potential audiences do not want to hear emotionally anaemic songs, no matter how well performed. Technology will not save you. All the digital hardware and software in the world cant come remotely close to emulating what your brain can do when it comes to creating emotionally evocative music and lyrics. In short, if you want to break away from the masses of struggling musicians, you have to learn how to use your brains evolved musical and linguistic modules to create accessible, memorable, emotionally powerful music and lyrics. INTRO.3 TECHNIQUE FIRST, THEN EMOTIONAL ABANDON First, you need to learn the technical elements covered in this book. Learn the skills Lennon and McCartney spent years acquiring before they ever wrote a song. They didnt read music, but by the time they started recording original songs, they had absorbed an awful lot of technical stuff about music. Their technical knowledge did not come to them magically. Growing up in Liverpool in the 1940s and early 1950s, Lennon and McCartney absorbed a good deal of their musical know-how from the classic songs of great masters such as the Gershwinbrothers,Noel Coward,ColePorter,andIrvingBerlin.McCartneylearned
17. 17. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!6 much about how music works from his father, a proficient amateur pianist who also played trumpet in a jazz band. Additionally, the lads devoured the best of American country, folk, and blues, thanks to young Liverpool sailors who brought home the latest records. Lennon and McCartney met in 1957, a couple of years after rock n roll (as it was known then) had become an international phenomenon. An early poster of Lennons pre-Beatles band, The Quarry Men, advertises the bands repertoire in this order: Country Western Rock n Roll Skiffle In the years before getting signed to a label, The Beatles played hundreds of gigs in England and Germanycovers of now classic songs. Once signed, they recorded covers of early rock n roll tunes such as Long Tall Sally, Roll Over Beethoven, and Matchbox. They also covered some decidedly non-rock material such as A Taste of Honey and Meredith Willsons 1957 Broadway show tune, Till There Was You, from The Music Man. Learning all those coverseverything from wartime dance hall tunes to American rockabilly and bluesand playing them over and over and over instilled in Lennon and McCartney a deep understanding and feel for the way great songwriters meld technical and psychological elements to create memorable songs. Any intelligent songwriter who learns how to do this (one way or another, not necessarily the way Lennon and McCartney mastered it), and applies it in his or her own original creative style, can compose brilliant songs consistently. Songwriters who do not learn how to do this (the vast majority) turn out mediocre material. As you go through this book, dont focus on rote-memorization of details. Just take in the major concepts (more on this in a minute). After a while, the most importanttechniques,summarizedattheendsofChapters 6through 11, will become second nature to you. Habitual. Once youve mastered the technical stuff, then write with unpremeditated emotional abandon. Without thinking about whether your methods are technically correct. Its like learning and applying any skill. Riding a bike or a horse. First you nail the technique, then you take off and explore. (Even when youve become highly skilled, youll find yourself editing and revising initial drafts to make each musical and lyrical component as powerful and memorable as possible.) WHY THIS BOOK IS A CLASSIC WESTERN (AND WHYWHY THIS BOOK IS A CLASSIC WESTERN (AND WHYWHY THIS BOOK IS A CLASSIC WESTERN (AND WHYWHY THIS BOOK IS A CLASSIC WESTERN (AND WHY YOU WILL NEED A HORSE)YOU WILL NEED A HORSE)YOU WILL NEED A HORSE)YOU WILL NEED A HORSE) In Chapter 2, youll learn why music does not progress the way science and technology progress. Instead, artists, including songwriters and performers, aim to create classics. (Artists who dont aspire to create classics are hacks.)
18. 18. INTRODUCTION 7 The popular songs of English-speaking nations of the West serve as this books reference base for examples and illustrations. Especially the 5,000 classic songs of Western popular music youll find at www.GoldStandardSongList.com. Classic songs by Western songwriters such as Bob Dylan, 2Pac, The Beatles, Hank Williams, Joni Mitchell, Marvin Gaye, Ferron, the Gershwin brothers, James Brown, Wu-Tang Clan, David Bowie, Annie Lennox, Bob Marley, Duke Ellington, the McGarrigle sisters, Tom Waits, and a thousand others. , then, is a Classic Western. That means, to get the most from this book, you will need a horse. If you dont already have one, Sadie and Ellie Sue over at the Dodge City Horse Store can probably fix you up. If they dont have one to your liking, two stagecoaches leave Dodge every morning, one eastbound to Wichita and the other southbound to Amarillo. Good horse stores in both towns. If you need a drink (and you probably will because youll find some bits of this book as dull as a lecture on the geology of gravel), ride on over to the Wrong Ranch Saloon. Ms Puma owns the place and pours the Jack Daniels. She has a heart of gold because, in accordance with her lifes role as a cliche in a Classic Western, she used to be a prostitute but has changed her ways. These days, as she tends bar at the Wrong Ranch, Ms Puma has a lot of interesting things to say on all kinds of topics, such as intelligent design and particle physics. For instance, she can explain to you in plain English why it is that, as quarks and gluons get closer together, the forces between them get weaker and weaker. Which, as folks in these parts realize, simply defies common sense. If you have a problem with horse stealers or other nasties, get hold of Marshal McDillon. Youll most likely find him over at the Wrong Ranch Saloon, visiting with Ms Puma a lot. If you cant find the Marshal, look for Deputy Fester, who hangs around Sadie and Ellie Sues horse store. Which is ironic, considering Deputy Fester cant ride a horse to save his pathetic soul. If you have a medical problem, Doc Yada-Yadams might be able to treat you. If hes sober. Which is seldom. But without him, this Classic Western would lack another important cliche, the town drunk.
19. 19. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!8 INTRO.4 WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING IN THIS BOOK In short, not much. Heres a list: How to count to 32 (well, maybe all the way up to 64). How to locate and play the notes A, B, C, D, E, F, and G on a piano or guitar or other instrument. Roman numerals from I up to VII. The meaning of simple ratios, such as 2:1", as in At the Wrong Ranch Saloon, Moosehead beer outsells Diet Coke 2:1. How to find, explore, and exploit the Gold Standard Song List (hint: its at www.GoldStandardSongList.com). What songs to play on your mouth organ for your horse as you ride along in the Deep Purple of Twilight Time through the Blue Shadows on the Trail. The farther you travel, the more you will need to get acquainted with the Gold Standard Song List and the instructions at that website on how to listen to free, legal excerpts of songs, and how to get the lyrics for any of the songs. INTRO.5 THE TERRITORY AHEAD All songs spring from songwriters information-processing brains. Great songwriters reveal in their songs (both music and lyrics) an intuitive understanding of the evolutionary biology of music. Thats the subject of Chapter 1. Songs become timeless classics if they tap into shared human universals, aspects of evolved behaviour that have not changed in tens or hundreds of thousands of years. As you go through this book, youll learn how to apply insights about how your brain works in the process of creating and performing your songs. And how your listeners brains work when they hear your songs. Is it tough to learn? In a word, nah. It aint rocket science.
20. 20. INTRODUCTION 9 Heres the thing. You cant separate biology from the arts. That includes music. The human brains built-in receptors for patterns and sequences become activated at several levels when the brain sensespatterns in melodies and chords and rhythm and lyrics. How Music REALLY Works! shows you how to exploit your brains adaptation for music in your songwriting and performing technique. Youll probablywritemuch bettersongs,memorable,powerful songs, once yougain an understanding of how the brain processes music and lyrics, and the emotional connections it makes. (Youll perform better, too). That does not mean you have to memorize all the technical details in this book. Instead, you only need to understand the essence of what youre reading. You can go through the material at whatever pace youre comfortable with. No need to rush. Your brain will retain the gist of the material that interests you, the stuff you find yourself having fun withespecially the territory thats new for you. When youre done, of course youll need to look up specific details from time to time to refresh your memory. But you dont need to memorize lengthy passages to acquire useful information. Theoft-quotedphilosopher,Huckleberry Finn,bestsumsup whereyoureheaded in the following pages, and why: I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest because Aunt Sally shes going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I cant stand it. I been there before. DONT TAKE YOUR GUNS TO TOWNDONT TAKE YOUR GUNS TO TOWNDONT TAKE YOUR GUNS TO TOWNDONT TAKE YOUR GUNS TO TOWN Before you get going, heres some friendly advice from Deputy Fester: dont take your guns to town. Hes referring to an incident that happened at the Wrong Ranch Saloon on the main street of Dodge some years ago. Deputy Fester told the whole story to an admiring reporter from the Dodge City Musical Saw Weekly in an interview at the Wrong Ranch. See that dusty cowpoke on the barstool yonder? Watch what you say around him. Hell try to laugh you down. Hes the dude Billy Joes ma warned Billy Joe about in the Johnny Cash song, Dont Take Your Guns To Town. She warned Billy Joe quite a few times in the chorus. Leave your guns at home, Bill, she said. Dont take your guns to town. But did he listen to his ma? Noooooo.
21. 21. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!10 Heres the story. Billy Joe straps on his guns and tells his ma hes a man, and gets on his horse and he rides into Dodge. He hitches his horse outside the Wrong Ranch and strides in like he owns the place and orders a double Jack Daniels and Ms Puma serves it up. Which Billy Joe knocks back too fast, and starts coughing like an idiot. So the dusty cowpoke over there starts laughing him down. Next thing you know, they get into that famous gunfight, and the cowpoke plugs Billy Joe real good, because thats how the song goes. We planted Billy Joe up on Boot Hill. That part isnt in the song, but we had to do something. You cant just leave a body shot full of holes to rot on a saloon floor. It would stink like a sack of rotten eggs in a day or two. Ms Puma would lose her license pretty quick. We couldnt even report the shootout to Marshal McDillon, because thats not in the song either, and Johnny Cash wouldnt let us change the lyrics. He told us he already shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, in one of his songs, and he didnt take kindly to strangers messing with his plot lines. Especially in a song where a dude gets shot. Bad karma, Johnny Cash said. So the dusty cowpoke never even got arrested. So thats why I advise everybody who reads this book to please leave your guns at home. You never know what sort of dangerous characters and ideas you might come across, itching to pick a fight. Thank you.
22. 22. 1 What Music REALLY Is, Who Makes It, Where, When, Why Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best. FRANK ZAPPA 1.0.1 PIQUING THE POLARIZED Chapter 1 addresses these five basic questions about music: 1. WHAT is music? 2. WHO makes music? 3. WHERE does music come from? 4. WHEN did music get started? 5. WHY is there such a thing as music? Theotherquestion,HOWdoes one goaboutcreatingmusicworthlisteningto? takes nine chapters to answerChapters 3 through 11, the main part of the book. Tackling the five Ws of the phenomenon of music necessitates delving into Darwinian natural selection and sexual selection. Ifyou have a strong religiousfaith,
23. 23. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!12 you may find bits of Chapter 1 offensive because of all the evolution stuff. On the other hand, if you have a strong atheistic belief, Chapter 1 may offend you, too, because it does not advocate for atheism. If you already know all about natural selection and sexual selection and brain modularity, then Chapter 1 might simply bore you. If so, why not grab a bag of chips and ride on ahead to Chapter 2, which discusses the rise of the Western popular music industry and its various genres. OrChapters 3through 11, the sections on how to create memorable, emotionally powerful music and lyrics. 1.1 What Is Music? 1.1.1 BIOLOGICAL, NOT MYSTICAL Music has played a central role in human existence for hundreds of thousands of years. So...what is music? According to the evidence, its probably an adaptationalthough some researchers argue music is a byproduct of other adaptations. Whats an adaptation? It's a biological trait that evolved to promote survival or reproductive success. A tigers fangs. A peacocks fan.A mosquitos ability todraw blood and escape into the night, just as youre trying to get to sleep. As a human, you possess manyformidableadaptations, such as bipedalism (two- legged walking), language, and a lot of other inborn skills that your fellow primates do not have. (Unlike horses, all primates several hundred specieshave highly flexible 5-fingered hands, opposable digits, and sharp eyesight. Some, such as monkeys, apes, and humans, also have relatively large brains.) Before biologists confer adaptation status upon a human trait, in a solemn ceremony at Stonehenge under a full moon, said trait must fulfil several criteria, among them: Humans in all present-day cultures must use the adaptation.
24. 24. CHAPTER 1WHAT MUSIC REALLY IS, WHO MAKES IT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY 13 Evidence from history and anthropology must indicate the adaptations existence in ancient cultures. Evidence from palaeontology must indicate the adaptations existence to some degree in extinct hominid speciesthat is, in other species of bipedal human-like primates, all now extinct. All of the above apply to language and bipedalism. They also apply to music. Every human culture ever known has had music. Even societies that do not have well-developed visual arts show sophisticated musical development. Today, practically all normal adult human beings: Can and do sing to some degree (Pop Idol/American Idol contestants notwithstanding), even if only in the privacy of an elevator or on the back of a horse in the hills south of Tulsa. Can and do tap at least one foot to a tune, once in a while (an important qualification as youll see in a minute). Listen toself-chosenmusic,purchase music,andotherwiseshowappreciation for music at some level. (I couldve played guitar like Jimi, but I chose to go into accounting instead, to meet more women.) 1.2 Who Makes Music? 1.2.1 HOOTIN AND HOWLIN: HOW ANIMAL SOUNDS DIFFER FROM OTHER SOUNDS IN NATURE In nature, when you listen to the wind in the trees or water rushing in a stream, what do you hear? Random and diffuse background sound. Like traffic in the city. A wide range of frequencies all mixed together. (Frequency just means number of vibrations per second. A given frequency number corresponds to a particular tone or note, such as A-440, the A above Middle C. More on this in Chapter 3.)
25. 25. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!14 Animals evolved ways of signalling each other using calls that focus on narrow bands of frequencies. Energy concentrated in this way results in sounds that carry long distances. You can hear the hootin and howlin easily against the random background sound. Species also evolve sounds specific to their own kind, so that they can identify each other. In a tropical rainforest, for example, a small area of, say, one square kilometre may contain scores of different bird species. Each species has evolved a signature sound, a distinctive song or repertoire of songs. (More on developing a signature sound in Chapter 11.) 1.2.2 HOOTIN AND HOWLIN: INSTINCTIVE VS LEARNED Studyingvocalizationsofnon-human animals provides somecluesabouthow music originated in humans. For instance, some animals use vocalizations to signal alarm, some to signal discovery of a food source. All birds with complex songs learn their songs from each other. But they dont learn just any old tunesthey learn species-specific songs only. And, once learned, their songs change little. The fact that they learn songs at all, though, makes birds musically akin to humans, whales, and dolphins. (But that does not mean humans became musical by imitating birds!) Oddly, some of our closest primate relatives, monkeys and chimpanzees, do not learn their vocalizations from each other. Theyre born with an instinctive and limited repertoire of grunts and calls. Chimpanzees have about 30 calls. Even the charming vocal duetting of gibbons is not learned; its innate. Animal calls and songs normally communicate an emotional state. So its possible that the musical vocalizations that humans evolved did not co-evolve with language, since language communicates mostly information. Human music may havepredated human language, but its highly unlikely that language evolved before music. 1.2.3 HUMAN SOUNDMAKING: DISCRETE PITCHES (NO MORE HOOTIN AND HOWLIN) Non-humanprimatevocalization takestheform ofunpitchedgruntsandcalls,rather than discrete pitches. Your human brain does not respond happily to continuously
26. 26. CHAPTER 1WHAT MUSIC REALLY IS, WHO MAKES IT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY 15 sliding hootin and howlin when presented in musical or speech contexts. It gets confused. Unlike all other animals, humans evolved a vocal communication system that uses mainly discrete pitches. You can hear it in both speech and music. Thats why the melodies of songs found in all musical traditions follow scales, groups of discrete pitches (the subject of Chapter 4). 1.2.4 HUMAN SOUNDMAKING: ENTRAINMENT (THATS EN-TRAIN-MENT, NOT ENTERTAINMENT) Humans entrain to isometric beats. To entrain(from the same root as train, referring to being dragged or carried along) means to join in and synchronize to a rhythmic source outside the bodyto play, clap, tap, sing along. Or, as a musician would put it, to lock in with the band. Isometric refers to steady, evenly-spaced regular beats. The ability to entrain rhythmically to an external beatvital in both music and dancehas evolved only in humans. No other animal can do it. Selective pressure for teamwork and group coordination may have triggered the evolution of the rhythmic entrainment function in humans. (Selective pressure refers to the environmental demandsincluding conditions in the social environmentthat favour the Darwinian evolution of physical and mental traits over a long period of time. In short, selective pressure drives Darwinian evolution. For example, selective pressure for group bonding may have driven, among many other social behaviours, the evolution of the human ability to harmonize, or blend discrete pitchesa skill unique to humans.) The innate ability to entrain means people can participate in a musical performance without knowing how to play a musical instrumentclapping along, noddingtothebeat,and, of course, dancing.A few animals can chorus in synchrony, such as frogs and crickets. But only humans can vary the tempo (number of beats per minute) from slow to several times faster, without losing the sense of synchronous timing. Only humans have the ability to play musical instruments. Non-human primates cannot keep a steady beat or learn new melodic sequencing. Thats why theyre incapable of playing the most basic of instruments, and cannot be trained to learn even the simplest human music (although they can learn simple human language).
27. 27. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!16 Every human culture ever known has had music. We humans take for granted oureffortlessdiscrete-pitchvocalizingandisometrictime-keepingskills.Non-human animals have no such abilities, and consequently no true appreciation of bluegrass, ABBA, or hip-hop. Except for certain breeds of dogs who join in when they hear particular songs from musical theatre and R & B. 1.3 Where Does Music Come From? 1.3.1 NOT OUT OF THIN AIR: MUSIC COMES FROM EVOLVED BRAIN MODULES Some people believe music comes wafting magically out of thin air in the form of mysterious, disembodied inspiration. It then presumably lodges in the skull of the composer or songwriter, who feverishly jots it down or records it on a tiny digital device, and later claims, It just came to me in a flash. I wrote the whole song in 23 seconds. Thats where music seems to come from. But the musical inspiration you enjoy actually comes to you courtesy of the parallel processing that goes on in certain integrated modules within the fascinating neuro-computational organ located inside your head. Your brain processes music and also creates music. So, whats a module? Its a network of brain cells, a brain structure, that has evolved to carry out some specialized function. The Canadian cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, in Howthe Mind Works, describes the mind as what the brain does, or, more specifically, ...not a single organ but a system of organs, which we can think of as psychological faculties or mental modules. Evidence from cognitive science, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, and other disciplines points to the existence of numerous such brain structures. Possibly hundreds of them. A mental toolbox that enables you to survive and replicate your genes in your offspring.
28. 28. CHAPTER 1WHAT MUSIC REALLY IS, WHO MAKES IT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY 17 Consider your bodys architecture. You have many physical body parts, external and internalhands, feet, lungs, heart, etc. You can easily identify numerous sub- parts as well: each of your hands has fingers, fingernails, knuckles, a thumb, palm, muscles, ligaments. Every normal human is born with these physical internal and external body parts. The same applies to your brains architecture. Even though you cant see your brains modules, theyre as real, and as different from each other, as your hands and your liver. And, like the rest of your body parts, you have these brain structures at birth. All otherhumans on the planet are born with the same brain modules as you, just as theyre born with the same internal and external body parts that make all of us identifiablyhuman. And that means, as discussed laterin this chapter, humans show remarkable similarities in behaviour in every culture globally. Brain modules or faculties vary slightly from individual to individual, just as other body parts do. The feet you were born with, for example, have the same basic structure and anatomy as everybody elses feet. While easily identifiable as feet, your feet vary slightly from everyone elses; theyre identifiably yours. Same with the mental faculties or modules you were born with. While each one performs the same specialized function in every human brain, your modules vary slightly from everyone elses. But, like your feet, your mental modules still perform in a recognizably human way. Thats why human culture shows so much similarity everywhere in the world. And that includes musical similarity, discussed in more detail later in this chapter. MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCESMULTIPLE INTELLIGENCESMULTIPLE INTELLIGENCESMULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES What exactly is intelligence? Usually, its defined as the ability to understand, reason, and solve problems. So IQ tests focus on logical and verbal abilities. However, according to the theory of multiple intelligences (controversial, but nonetheless intriguing because it jibes with evidence that the mind has evolved as a complex modular system), humans have other kinds of intelligenceinterpersonal intelligence, kinesthetic intelligence, visual intelligence, and so on. One of these is musical intelligence. Most people excel at only one or two kinds of intelligence. For instance, if youre gifted as a musician, and also have an outstanding ability to empathize, then you might have
29. 29. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!18 exceptional potential for writing songsand yet score only average on a standard IQ test. 1.3.2 YOU WERE BORN WITH A PERSONALITY The genetic code to build a head full of specialized modules evolved in response to selective pressure over millions of years. Being born with music-acquisition, language-acquisition and other skills and abilities already wired in your brain means you were born with a basic personality. You inherited it from your parents. But the personality you had at birth differed substantially from the personalities of your parents. Your modular brain structures are not completely developed, connected, and constructed at birth. Thats why it takes some time before you can talk and sing. The same applies to other aspects of your development. It takes several years before your permanent teeth come in. If youre female, you dont begin to develop breasts until puberty. If youre male, you dont grow facial hair until then. Nevertheless, at birth, you have the brain wiring in place for all this to happen. Fromchildhoodon,thesurroundingculture shapesthepersonalityyouwereborn with,butdoes notreplaceit. Thepersonalityyou havetodayowesits characterpartly to your genetic inheritance (perhaps half), and partly to your personal environment (perhaps half)especially your peer group. (NOTE: This does not mean that your genetic inheritance causes 50% of your personality and your peer group causes the other 50%. Instead, it refers to observed variance inmeasuresofpersonality and behaviourdue to diversityamong individuals in all kinds of areas related to upbringing, such as education, religion, leisure activities, and so on.) Genetic inheritanceinfluences everyones behaviourtoday,asitalwayshas.That is, no matter how enculturated we humans think weve become, we have not by any means outgrown our genes! 1.3.3 MODULES AINT COMPUTERS Atbirth,yourbrain cameequippedwithnumerouspre-wired adaptationsprecisely the opposite of a blankslate (moreon this a bit later). Your brain does not function like a general-purpose computer with a single processor. As an example of the
30. 30. CHAPTER 1WHAT MUSIC REALLY IS, WHO MAKES IT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY 19 inborn modular nature of the brain, consider the brain circuitry for modelling objects visually. It exists in the brains of all people at birtheven people born blind. That is, some people blind from birth can accurately draw objects in proper 3-D visual perspective, a skill they could not possibly learn from the surrounding culture. For example, a Turkish artist named Esref Armagan, who has been blind since birth, can paint realistic compositions of things he has never seen, with accurate three-point perspective and scale size. Your brains modular architecture does not resemble conventional computer design. Pinker again: The word module brings to mind detachable snap-in components, and that is misleading. Mental modules are not likely to be visible to the naked eye as circumscribed territories on the surface of the brain, like the flank steak and rump roast on the supermarket cow display. A mental module probably looks more like roadkill, sprawling messily over the bulges and crevasses of the brain. Or it may be broken into regions that are interconnected by fibers that make the regions act as a unit...the metaphor of the mental module is a bit clumsy; a better one is Noam Chomskys mental organ. If you own an ordinary desktop or notebook computer, its a serial computer that mimics a parallel computer. Unlike your brain, a computer processor executes only one instruction at a time. But it does its work so fast that it usually fools you into thinking its doing several things at once. Thats not how your brain works. Brain structures tend to evolve as specializations for various tasks, such as detecting danger, recognizing faces, protecting kin, mating,predictingthebehaviourofothers,andplayingtheharmonica for your horse. Taken together, your brains constituent modules do not function like a conventional computer. Nor like computer software. Nor like a mechanical clock. Rather, they connect up in vastly complex networks of neurons that communicate with each other and vie for your attention. Your brain is a massively parallel neural organ of computation, not a serial one. That is, unlike a small conventional human- made computer, your small conventional human brain processes information and interpretations using many different modules simultaneously. Thats why you can drive your car, drink coffee, talk on your cell phone, and run over a pedestrian, all at the same time. Try programming a computer to do that! 1.3.4 EVIDENCE FOR BRAIN MODULARITY Where does the evidence of brain modularity come from?
31. 31. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!20 Studies of patients who have experienced brain lesions (structural changes in the brain) due to injury or disease reveal brain modularity. Many patients exhibit the same behavioural changes or deficits after suffering a brain lesion that occurs in the same physical area of the brain, often due to a stroke. Observations of the effects of injuries and diseases occurring in different parts ofthebrain havedisclosed a number of modules. Another source is measurement and observation of brain activity using positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). These techniques reveal which specific parts of the brain are active during the performance of a mental or physical task. If, in many individuals, the same specific areas light up during the performance of the same task, it indicates a module or modules at work. Some other information sources that scientists in a variety of specialties use to investigate the functioning of the brains mental organs are: Observed effects of abnormalities in specific genes that implicate certain modules, such as the FOXP2 gene and language (discussed a bit later in this section) Observed effects of taking drugs that act on specific modules Optical and aural illusions that trigger conflicts between modules Studies of behaviour and abilities of newborns and pre-lingual infants particularly useful in revealing the inborn, adaptive aspects of music Comparativestudiesofidentical twins,fraternaltwins,biological siblings,and adopted siblings Human behaviour studies that control for cultural variables (psychological experimentation) Findings from palaeontologye.g., discovery of a 44,000-year-old bone flute at a Neanderthal site, indicating they had similar mental functioning in music as humans Findings from archaeology Studies of behaviour and learning in animals, especially our close primate cousins such as chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, gibbons Genome datae. g., chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans share more than 98% of the same genetic material
32. 32. CHAPTER 1WHAT MUSIC REALLY IS, WHO MAKES IT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY 21 The human brain took millions of years to evolve into an incredibly complex, powerful thingofbeauty.Dissecting acadavers brainprovidesnoinformation about the workings of the living, functioning brain. And neurosurgeons cannot open up skulls of living humans simply to poke, prod, and probe through all the billions of tangled microscopic neurons, to see how everything works. So evolutionary psychologists and biologists can and do use data from the sources listed above to, in effect, reverse engineer the brain as best they can. MYTH OF 10% USE OF THE BRAINMYTH OF 10% USE OF THE BRAINMYTH OF 10% USE OF THE BRAINMYTH OF 10% USE OF THE BRAIN Perhaps the source of this myth is that, at any given moment, you only use a fraction of your entire brain. But throughout the day, you do use all of it. If youre sitting down, you dont need to use the modules required to get you walking or running. If youre in a quiet room reading a book, you dont need to use your music-processing modules. Your brain functions pretty efficiently. So you dont require the use of every module in your brain at every moment. Think of driving a car. You dont use your cars accelerator at every moment, nor the brakes, horn, radio, signal lights (some drivers never use them!), and so on. You dont use all of your brain all of the time, but you certainly do need all of the modules in your brain. You do use all of them. Otherwise, they would not have evolved in the first place. Brain modules are adaptationsnecessary units of biological functionthat evolve in response to selective pressure. 1.3.5 WHERE IN THE BRAIN? MUSIC MODULES IN INFANTS If music were not a true adaptation, it would have had to have arisen only recently. However, the evidence indicates music probably predates our own species, Homo sapiens. That is, other hominid species, now extinct, such as Homo neanderthalensis, had music.
33. 33. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!22 As well, neurological evidence supports the hypothesis that modules for creating and processing music exist in the brain at birth. Settingasidelyrics forthemomentandconsideringmusic only,mostpeoplethink of the melodythe tuneas the essence of a piece of music. Harmony without melody or rhythm just doesnt work. Rhythm without melody or harmony gets tiresome after a while due to something called habituation (discussed in later chapters). Butyoucancreatepalatablemusic with melodyonlyno harmonyorregular beat (e. g., background music in film and television). Infants perceive melodic patterns much as adults do. They respond to changes in melodic contour and changes in key like adults do, indicating genetic origins. Newborns have pre-wired neuronal circuitry to perceive the following (if youre not familiar with some of the musical terminology below, all will be revealed in the next few chapters): Melodic contour in both music and speech Consonant intervals (Chapter 4 goes into detail about intervals) Rhythmic patterns in both music and speech Pre-lingual infants in all cultures can: Recognize changes in a melody Resolve tiny pitch differences (and small timing differences) Recognize the same melody even if sped up or slowed down Recognize the same melody when transposed to a different key Perceive diatonic tunes more easily than non-diatonic tunes Perceive consonant intervals more easily than dissonant intervals Respond to their mothers melodious, song-like vocalizing to a much greater degree than their mothers speech vocalizing Adapt to the musical conventions of whatever society theyre born into
34. 34. CHAPTER 1WHAT MUSIC REALLY IS, WHO MAKES IT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY 23 Culture modifies the expression of these predispositions, but the predispositions exist in the brain at birth (characteristic of adaptations). Babiesworldwidespontaneouslyinitiatemusical sound-play. Young childrenare forever inventing games and rhythmic play. Adults do not teach them this stuff. In fact, children have difficulty separating rhythmic body movements from music and singing until age four or five. Next time you observe a preschooler having a musical experience, notice how he or she jumps around, claps and makes other rhythmic gestures. 1.3.6 WHERE IN THE BRAIN? MODULARITY AND UNIVERSAL MUSICAL GRAMMAR Music can best be understood as a system of relationships between tones, just as language is a system of relationships between words. ANTHONY STORR Groups of inter-connected modules for processing music probably developed independently over time. Separate sub-modules likely process tone duration, pitch, loudness, and timbre. Interestingly, lesion studies indicate that separate modules even process the closely-related elements, meter and rhythm. Pitch patterns that group hierarchically (discussed in Chapter 8) appear to form the basis of musical syntax (set of musically grammatical rules). Our brains have a genetically determined ability to create, learn, and process language, called Universal Grammar, one of Noam Chomskys seminal discoveries in linguistics. It appears that our brains also have a genetically determined specialization for music. Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, who co- authored aclassic bookon the subject, labelled it Universal Musical Grammar. They were inspired to a degree by the Polish music theorist Heinrich Schenker. However, just as people learn a specific language in childhood and dont understand other languages without learning them, so people learn specific musical styles of their culture and dont understand the musical styles of other cultures without learning them. On the other hand, musical universals bespeak the genetic underpinnings of all music (musical universals are listed a bit later). If you make music that breaks the brains inborn rules, regardless of culture, the music you make will likely not appeal to more than a handful of humans. If you play recordings of bird songs of different species to young songbirds raised in captivity, they will only learn the songs of their own species, evidence of genetic origins. Blackbirds in captivity, no matter how much loving care andpatient training
35. 35. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!24 they receive, stubbornly refuse to learn the Lennon-McCartney tune Blackbird, because a blackbird did not write the song. The same appears to apply to human infants. Human babies recognize and learn speech and melodies characteristic of the human species, rather than a particular culture. If you learn two languages in childhood, youll learn both effortlessly and speak both without an accent as an adult. But if you learn one language in childhood and a second language as an adult, you will learn the first language effortlessly and speak it without an accent, and the second only with considerable effort, and speak it with an accent. Since all of the worlds musics share a set of universals, like languages, its likely that this phenomenon applies to musical cultures. Suppose you have grown up learning the tonal system of the West, with little exposure to the tonal system of, say, India. And suppose, as an adult, you decide to move to India and learn to play the sitar.Youll probablyfindyourselfexpendingconsiderableefforttolearnwhatyoung Indian sitar players seem to learn effortlessly. And, after some years of training, you will likely play the instrument with an accent, so to speak, compared with native- born players of your age and musical experience. (Try it!) 1.3.7 WHERE IN THE BRAIN? LATERALIZATION IN ANIMALS AND HUMANS Brain lateralization refers to the location of neuronal circuitry for specific skills and behaviours in either the left or the right hemisphere of the brain. Handedness reveals brain lateralization, or lack of it, in a clear way. In most species, handedness favouring the right or left hand, hoof, wing, pawis non-committal. For example, youll find left- and right-handedness equally distributed in chimpanzees and other apes. A few animals other than humans have pronounced handedness, such as the walrus, of all creatures. Humans manifest extremely specialized right-handedness, reflecting the importance of left-brain sequencing and left-brain language adaptations. Humans probably communicated symbolically with hand gestures before, and during the process of, converting to symbolic spoken language. Brain lateralization in humans may have resulted from growing numbers and complexities of modular specializations competing for space as the brain swelled in size in response to selective pressure to cope with larger and more complex human social organization. Something related to the social nature of humans drove the huge expansion of the brain. It could well have been either music or language. The left hemisphere tries to solve problems and processes sequential patterns, including language and rhythm. Its also active in positive emotional processing.
36. 36. CHAPTER 1WHAT MUSIC REALLY IS, WHO MAKES IT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY 25 The right hemisphere has modules for, among other things, spatial cognition and the interpretation of harmony. WHY MOM HOLDS BABY ON THE LEFTWHY MOM HOLDS BABY ON THE LEFTWHY MOM HOLDS BABY ON THE LEFTWHY MOM HOLDS BABY ON THE LEFT Why does Mom hold baby with babys head on Moms left side? Its not because of a connection the baby feels with Moms heartbeat. And it also has nothing to do with right-handedness versus left-handedness. Left-handed mothers also tend to hold their babies on the left. It has to do with brain specialization for emotional processing. As you know, the brains right hemisphere connects to left body functions, and vice-versa. The right hemisphere is active in negative-emotion processing (fear, sadness). So the right hemisphere of Moms brain (and Dads brain, too), wired to her left field of vision and hearing, can more sensitively attune to her infants negative emotional signals, enabling Mom to take action accordingly. Baby cant talk yet, so mother-child communication is necessarily completely emotional. By the way, this is why, when youre talking to someone, you look at their right eye (your left field of vision), not their left eye. The brain has roughly 10 billion neurons (nerve cells). Although women have smaller brains than men, womens brains have significantly more neurons per unit ofcortexthan mens brains (up to 12% more). And womens brains havea somewhat different organizational architecture than mens brains. In any case, sheer brain size doesnt seem tomattermuch in humans.AlbertEinsteins brainweighedless than the average adult male brain. The overall architecture of your brain mimics the architecture of the rest of your body: a mirror-image pair of everything on each side, but only one of the things in the middle. You have one corpus callosum, the main bundle of nerves (there are others) that connects the left and right hemispheres. If youre a woman, your corpus callosum is quite a bit larger than it is in the brain of a man. This may account for the superior ability of women to reconcile conflicting left-right brain analyses of situations. The female brain is significantly less lateralized than the male brain. Functional modules are more globally distributed. Female and male humans have different attitudes and behave differently because of differences in evolved brain functions, wired-in from birth (more on this later in the chapter). Apparently, this fact still stirs controversy.
37. 37. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!26 1.3.8 WHERE IN THE BRAIN? LATERALIZATION AND MUSIC The common belief that the right hemisphere processes music and the left processes language does not hold up. If Doc Yada-Yadams, a fully qualified neurosurgeon, were to sedate the left hemisphere of your brain (dont try this at home), you would likely be able to sing a song (i.e., melody with words), but would not be able to speak. If the Doc sedated your right hemisphere, you would be able to speak, but not sing. Language and music time-share many characteristics in both hemispheres. Singing tends to be more right-hemisphere, with speech more left-hemisphere. Both the left and right hemispheres appear to process pitch intervals. Most people have a preferred listening ear, usually the right ear, which is connected to the speech-processing left hemisphere. When you answer the phone, you usually use your right ear. In male musicians, music shows much more lateralized processing in the brain, compared with female musicians. As for modularity,whethertheyrein theright,left,orboth hemispheres, separate modules apparently process the time-based elements of music (meter, rhythm), compared with the melodic elements (pitch, intervals). No one knows exactly how many modules do the work. Professional musicians show left-hemisphere dominance for music, amateurs right-hemisphere, probably because trained musicians approach music more analytically. As well, highly skilled musicians appear to use a significantly larger proportion of the brain in processing music than do people who listen to music but dont play. In broad terms, the evidence on brain lateralization in music processing indicates the following (Table 1):
38. 38. CHAPTER 1WHAT MUSIC REALLY IS, WHO MAKES IT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY 27 TABLE 1TABLE 1TABLE 1TABLE 1 Brain Lateralization In Music ProcessingBrain Lateralization In Music ProcessingBrain Lateralization In Music ProcessingBrain Lateralization In Music Processing Left hemisphere (connected to right ear and right side of body) processes: Time-based elements of music (rhythm) using sequence- processing modules Rhythmic aspects of melody Rapidly-changing information such as speechsequences of words. Right hemisphere (connected to left ear and left side of body) processes: Pitch-based elements such as the shape of a melody (melodic contour) and tonal patterns Harmony; the right hemisphere is better at spatial cognition; in a sense, the right hemisphere processes pitch and harmony as spatial elements of sound The emotional tone of voice (via the left ear, which is connected to the right hemisphere) better than the left hemisphere Brain Lateralization and Music Mixing Record producers and recording engineers, if they know what theyre doing, take into account brain lateralization in producing a stereo mix: Rhythm-heavytracks soundmorenatural ifbiassed alittle to the rightspeaker (right ear; left brain hemisphere). Harmony-rich tracks sound better if biassed a little to the left speaker (left ear; right brain hemisphere). Tracks requiring both melodic and rhythmic processing, such as lead vocals (including rapping, which has a lot of melodic content), sound better in the middle. If lyric intelligibility is a problem, right-speaker bias may help, as the right ear is connected to the speech- and sequence-processing left hemisphere.
39. 39. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!28 1.3.9 WHERE IN THE BRAIN? AMUSIA Some may say that I couldnt sing, but no one can say that I didnt sing FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS, arguably one of the worlds worst singers Amusia is the scientific term for what most people call tone deafness and other musical brain disorders. It refers to any of several disorders that result in loss of ability to create music, or to perceive and understand music (or both). Sometimesbraintraumacausesamusia.Sometimesdiseasetriggersit.Sometimes its congenital. If you have congenital amusia, youre born without the normal brain wiring to process pitch and rhythm. Consequently you cant sing in tune or tap in time with a steady beat (you cant entrain). Amusia is not common; it is believed to affect only about 5% of the population. Florence Foster Jenkins may have had congenital amusia. Stroke victims develop acquired or receptive amusia if they suffer brain damage to modules that process music. If you develop amusia this way, you can recognize the lyrics of a song you had known before you acquired amusiabut only when somebody speaks the lyrics to you. If they sing the lyrics, you can no longer recognize the tune. You have a hard time grasping or perceiving music. You cant follow a melody, identifythesoundsofvarious musical instruments, or makesenseofchords. Expressive amusia refers to the inability to create music by singing in tune, or entrain to an external source of music by tapping in time. However, if you have expressive amusia, you can usually still enjoy and understand music, and even remember tunes. 1.3.10 WHERE IN THE BRAIN? MODULARITY AND UNIVERSAL LINGUISTIC GRAMMAR The ability to acquire and use language is a species-specific human activity. NOAM CHOMSKY Since this book deals with lyrics (Chapter 10) as well as music, its fitting right about now to have a quick look at the whereabouts and identity of language in the brain. In the 1950s, the American linguist Noam Chomsky proposed that language was located as a module or system of modules in the brain. Turns out he was right. His work was a turning point in the cognitive revolution and the downfall of behaviourism, the doctrine that humans have blank-slate brains at birth.
40. 40. CHAPTER 1WHAT MUSIC REALLY IS, WHO MAKES IT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY 29 According to Chomsky, a generative grammara set of language rulesis encoded in theneuronal architectureof the brain, and is presentat birth. Brain wiring forgenerativegrammarmakesitpossibleforyoung childrentoautomatically become fluent in any language they are exposed to, effortlessly, and without the need for adult teaching. Literacy has nothing to do with language learning. Illiterate people worldwide have no difficulty communicating orally at the same grammatical level as those around them. If you were born in Dodge City but raised from infancy in the Canadian Arctic, you would grow up speaking Inuktitut. If you were born an Inuit in the far north but raisedfrominfancyinDodge,youwouldspeakEnglish,grow luxuriant flowing hair, and sing Classic Western songs about lost love and horses. With a Kansas accent. Unlike your vocabulary, you dont have to learn your mental grammar, as its called. You were born with it. Thats why, long before you started school, you already knew the difference between, Mommy plays the piano, and The piano plays Mommy, even though both sentences use the same four words. Universal Grammar means your brain automatically rejects patterns such as these: Plays piano the Mommy Piano the Mommy plays The plays Mommy piano Piano Mommy plays the and so on. Your brain has evolved the miraculous capacity to automatically distinguish a thing (noun) from an action (verb) from a qualifier (adjective, adverb, determiner). So, even if you never go to school and learn so-called proper grammar, youwill speakingrammaticallycorrectsentences, indistinguishablefrom the sentences spoken by others in your society who have had the benefit of a formal education. Proper grammar is built into your brain. Chomskys generative grammar theory has had an enormous impact in all of the cognitive sciences (i.e., sciences concerned with perception, intelligence, learning, and other aspects of mental function), not just the specialties relating to language. Scientists have since discovered many other modular adaptations throughout the brain. Every language in the world has the same design features. That is, although languages seem to have completely different syntaxes (grammatical rules), close analysis shows that all languages share the same deep structure. For example, all languages have verbs and nouns and either a subject-object or object-subject order. Since people of many cultures create languages independently, this means the capacity for acquiring and using language must have a genetic basis. Language appears to have its own neural architecture, or set of modules and sub-modules. These modules operate independently of other cognitive functions such as perception, reasoning, and knowledge-acquisition.
41. 41. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!30 The brain has the innate capacity to easily store words and their meanings, as well as the rules or patterns that recognize word types and word orders (I. e., grammar).Ourmental dictionaryandourmental grammar,whileindependent,work together in the parallel-processing neural organ of computation that is the human brain. Dramatic evidence supporting the theory that the ability to create language from scratch is pre-wired in the brain at birth comes from studies of two sign languages in widely separated populations of deaf people, one in Israel, the other in Nicaragua. In thesetwo populations, people creatednew languages from scratch,languages that could not possibly have been transmitted culturally. Linguists discovered that both languages function bythesame grammatical rulesaslanguagesworldwide. Theonly difference is the channel of transmission of meaningvia signing instead of speaking. Although selective pressure drove evolution of the brain adaptation for spoken language, which all humans use today, the same does not apply to written language, which only some humans have. To acquire written language, you have to learn it, because its a technological development, not an adaptation. (Written language emerged from idiographic representations of spoken language.) THE STROOP EFFECT: MODULES IN CONFLICTTHE STROOP EFFECT: MODULES IN CONFLICTTHE STROOP EFFECT: MODULES IN CONFLICTTHE STROOP EFFECT: MODULES IN CONFLICT Your brains many modules are specialized to perform different tasks. The Stroop effect demonstrates how the information arising from the processing of different modules can cause interference. Here are 25 words. Time yourself reading the words aloud, left to right, line by line, without errors: grey, black, white, etc. Now time yourself reading the COLOR of each of the 25 words aloud, left to right, line by line. For example, the first three
42. 42. CHAPTER 1WHAT MUSIC REALLY IS, WHO MAKES IT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY 31 words would be black, white, grey. Not so easy this timeit takes considerably longer. How come? The American psychologist John Ridley Stroop devised this test in the 1930s to demonstrate the interference effect your brain experiences when linguistic information conflicts with information from other senses. When you ignore color and simply read the words, you only need to use your language processing system, so its easy to say each word aloud. But when you try to say the color of each word, your brains executive system discerns a conflict between what your color processing modules are telling you and what your language processing modules are telling you about the meanings of the words associated with the colors. Two different kinds of information are entangled. To sort out the conflicting information, you have to first suppress the meaning of each word normally associated with the sequence of letters. This takes some effort. Then you have to translate the color of each group of letters into the word with the meaning that matches the color. Only then can you say the correct word. Primates such as gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos do not develop any kind of language-like communication system in the wild. They lack the language brain modules that humans are born with. However, in captivity, with much time and effort, trainers can get them to understand, in a rudimentary way, that arbitrary symbols represent objects. Apes can also learn elementary grammar-like rules, such as linking two symbols representing something different from either of the individual symbols. With about 30 years of patient training, a great ape can memorize a couple of hundred word meanings, and can almost acquire the language understanding of an 18-month-old human child. Bonobos fare somewhat better at language learning than chimpanzees. 1.3.11 WHERE IN THE BRAIN? FOXP2 AND MYH16 In 1990, Steven Pinker hypothesized that language evolved in humans by conventional Darwinian natural selection (Section 1.5 discusses natural selection). Chomsky, who first described brain-based universal grammar, did not go that far.
43. 43. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!32 Twelve years later, in 2002, a team of German and British geneticists published genetic evidence strongly supporting Pinker. They discovered that a particular gene, FOXP2, plays a vital role in processing speech and grammar. FOXP2 exists in other primates such as the chimpanzee, but the human form of the gene differs. The human form may have appeared 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. Communication by language gradually replaced communication by gesture. Language was the breakthrough technology that resulted in symbolic thinking and the cultural explosion that defines what it is to be human. If you happen to be born with abnormal human FOXP2, you will suffer from severe language impairment. That means that the normal human form is a naturally selected mutation, a target of natural selection. (A mutation is a randomly occurring change in the gene, resulting in a change in physiology oranatomy or even behaviour.) And that strongly indicates that the innate human capacity for effortless language learning is an adaptation, the product of Darwinian natural selection. Abouttwomillionyears ago, the hominid brain suddenly(in glacial evolutionary terms) began to get larger and larger, a process called encephalation. This did not occur in any of the other large primates, such as chimpanzees and gorillas. A mutation occurred in hominids around that time, a mutation that may have made encephalation possible. A genecalledMYH16, activeinchimpanzees, ensureshugejawmusclebuild-up, necessary for powerful chewing. These muscles constrict the skull, something like bungee cords, preventing growth in cranial capacity. In hominids, a mutation appeared line that deactivated MYH16. This may have freed the hominid skull to expand. And expand it did, tripling in size over the next 2 million years. To this day, chimpanzees still havetheactive version of MYH16 and comparativelysmall skulls. All humans have the deactivated human mutation of MYH16 and comparatively huge skulls. As well, theres evidence of a connection between MYH16 and FOXP2. It turns out that if you have abnormal human FOXP2, you not only have grave cognitive language difficulties, but you also have physical problems with your mouth and jaw muscles. Taken together, the uniquely human variants of MYH16 and FOXP2 look like smoking-gun mutations with respect to encephalation and language development. 1.3.12 WHERE IN THE BRAIN? APHASIA Aphasia is the language equivalent of amusia, discussed a bit earlier. Aphasia refers to any of several disorders that result in loss of ability to communicate in speech or writing (or both). There are two main types:
44. 44. CHAPTER 1WHAT MUSIC REALLY IS, WHO MAKES IT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY 33 1. Brocas Aphasia (also called expressive aphasia): If you have a stroke or otherwise suffer damage to a specific area of the left hemisphere called Brocasarea,you will havedifficultyspeaking.However, the content of what youre saying, slow and disjointed as it may come out, will make sense. Interestingly, if you have Brocas aphasia, you will have great difficulty reciting or speaking the words of a song you had learned before developing aphasia, but will usually be able to sing the words fluently. 2. Wernickes Aphasia (also called fluent aphasia): If you have a stroke or otherwise suffer damage to an area of the left hemisphere called Wernickes area, you will be able to speak fluently, but the content of what youre saying will not make sense. Numerous politicians, some defence attorneys, Ann Coulter, television evangelists, many advertising copywriters, talk radio hosts, and talk radio callers appear to suffer from Wernickes aphasia. 1.3.13 THE COMBINATORIAL NATURE OF MUSIC AND LANGUAGE Chomsky pointed out the following: Pretty much every sentence that everyone utters is a different combination of words, never heard before. That means its impossible to store all sentences in the brain. That means the brain must have a mechanism for putting words together in a meaningful way. That means the brain can tell the difference between a group of words that makes sense, and a group of words that pickles without lamented occidental Custers stapler.
45. 45. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!34 Heres how Steven Pinker describes the combinatorial nature of the brains language module: A finite number of discrete elements (in this case, words) are sampled, combined, and permuted to create larger structures (in this case, sentences) with properties that are quite distinct from those of their elements. For example, the meaning of Man bites dog is different from the meaning of the same words combined in reverse order. Itspossible,therefore,toconstruct apractically infinitenumberofsentenceswith a relatively limited vocabulary. The same applies to music: A scale has a finite number of different pitches. Each pitch can last for a finite number of different time values. Each pitch can be combined with a finite number of other pitches to create a finite number of intervals and chords. And so on. Even though each type of musical property (melody, harmony, rhythm) has a finite number of elements, when you multiply out all the possibilities, you get a practically infinite number of possible tunes a songwriter could write. Thats what combinatorial means. Chomskys universal generative linguistic grammar describes the brains ability to compile an inventory of words and apply a set of combinatorial rules. Lerdahl and Jackendoffsuniversal generativemusical grammardescribesthe brains ability to compile an inventory of tones and apply a set of combinatorial rules. The whole human brain is a combinatorial system, a parallel-processing neural organ of computation. Using mentalese (described below), a discrete number of mental symbols can be combined and recombined, using as many modules and sub- modules as necessary. In other words, humans have the ability to think up, or imagine, an almost infinite number of possibilities, because thought is itself combinatorial. Thats why behaviour is infinitely variable. Both music and language use small numbers of elements to generate an infinite number of combinations of word phrases and musical phrases. Therefore, its likely that the brain function of combinatoriality evolved before the evolution of separate music and language specialties.
46. 46. CHAPTER 1WHAT MUSIC REALLY IS, WHO MAKES IT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY 35 THE GENETIC CODE IS LIKE LANGUAGETHE GENETIC CODE IS LIKE LANGUAGETHE GENETIC CODE IS LIKE LANGUAGETHE GENETIC CODE IS LIKE LANGUAGE The genetic code, like language, is combinatorial. Thats why every bacterium, plant and creature is genetically different, even within the same species, and even though each uses the same 64 three-letter DNA words. Here are some analogies between language and the genetic code: Language Genetic Code LETTERS 26 letters (symbols), A, B, C, etc. NUCLEOTIDES 4 nucleotides: cytosine, guanine, adenine, and thymine WORDS A word consists of one or more letters. Thousands of words are in a dictionary. Speech and written documents are comprised of words from the dictionary. CODONS A codon consists of three adjacent nucleotides. 64 codons form the genetic dictionary. All living things use the same 64-codon dictionary. SENTENCES Sequences of words are called sentences or lines of poetry, etc. They code meaningful representations of thought. GENES Sequences of codonsstrands of DNAare called genes. They code chains of amino acid molecules called proteins, which comprise various body parts. CHAPTERS Many sentences form a larger unit called a chapter. CHROMOSOMES Many genes form a long strand of DNA called a chromosome.
47. 47. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!36 BOOK All of the chapters containing all of the sentences form a bookperhaps 10,000 sentences. GENOME All of the chromosomes, containing all of the genes, form the genome of the organism. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, one member of each pair from each parent. The human genome consists of some 20,000 to 25,000 genes. The fact that all life on earth is based on the same 64-codon DNA dictionary makes it a virtual certainty that all life, all microbes, plants, and animals that have ever existeddinosaurs, oysters, apple trees, sharks, daffodils, rats, chimpanzees, and humansevolved from the same single molecular strand, a monad (first simple organism) that fused, through natural chemical mechanisms, from non-living molecules nearly 4 billion years ago. 1.3.14 HOW PLASTIC IS YOUR BRAIN? The human brain exhibits some degree of plasticity. For example, a young child who trains as a pianist experiences some modification in the cortex as a result of that musical training. While your brain is in some measure, adapted to adapt, plasticity does not mean your brain consists of a lot of generalized matter that can do pretty much anything. Plasticity simply means a module can take on some functioning for which it was not specifically adapted, provided that functioning relates to what the module would ordinarily do. Cross-modal plasticity refers to the ability of your brains modules to reorganize themselves somewhat to take advantage of cortical modules not being used due to sensory loss. Forexample, loss orabsenceofvision can stimulate some brain module reorganization, enhancing a blind persons sense of pitch and direction. Blind individuals often have extraordinary musical skills. The effect of plasticity is much more evident in childhood. In blind people, pitch discrimination (the ability to judge the direction of extremely rapid pitch change) is much keener than in sighted people, especially if the individual became blind before the age of two. Its easier to learn to playa musical instrument or to speak more than onelanguageinchildhoodbecause thebrain isreceptive toapplyingitsbuilt-in music
48. 48. CHAPTER 1WHAT MUSIC REALLY IS, WHO MAKES IT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY 37 and language processing modules to any language and any musical culture during childhood. After a period of time, called the critical period, plasticity diminishes sharply as thevariousmodulesbecomefullyfunctional. If you dontlearn early, your brain is pre-wired to move on to the next stage, and you lose the window of opportunity. 1.3.15 MENTALESE: THINKING WITHOUT LANGUAGE Contrary to popular mythology, thelanguageyou speakdoes not mouldorshape the way you think.An Arabic-speaking person,forexample,doesnotthinkdifferently from the way an English-speaking person thinks. You do not even need language to think. Humans (and other animals) use a brain language, the language of thought, usually called mentalese. If thoughts depended on words, nobody would be able to translate anything from one language to another. The words of the French language do not all have exact equivalents in, say, English. The translation, then, is thoughtfor thought, not word for word. The translator uses mentalese to make decisions on how to structure the thoughts across the languages. You, like everybody, sometimes have problems putting thoughts into words. Thats not because your thoughts dont exist; of course they do. Putting them into words means translating mentalese into language. That can be a chore. When you finish reading this chapter of this book, you might remember only one or two of the specific sentences. But that does not mean you will have forgotten the content of the chapter (unless you havent been paying attention). What you will remember is the gist of this chapter. You will easily be able give your friends a fairly detailed oral summary of the chapter (and urge them in the strongest possible terms to buy this interesting and highly informative book), but you will not likely use any of the exact sentences you read in this chapter, because you wont remember them. You will remember the gist of this chapter in mentalese, the language of thought. The same applies to other experiences you have, such as seeing a movie or attending a party. Not only do you absorb the gist of the story line as revealed in the dialogue of the movie (or conversations you had at the party), but you also remember information that other modules have captured during the experience, such as the visual and auditory elements. Later, you can describe not only the gist of the dialogue, but also the gist of the visual setting, the soundscape, and how the experience made you feel emotionally. Mentalese captures the gist of all of this. You dont store all of it permanently, of course; memories fade over time. Chapter 7 discusses the various types and functions of memory. Similarly, you can identify a familiar piece of music, even though you hear it in a completely transformed arrangement, played with unfamiliar instruments. You
49. 49. HOW MUSIC REALLY WORKS!38 recognize the unfamiliar rendition because you retain the gist of it. For example, you can recognize My Favourite Things from The Sound of Music even if its played in a jazz arrangement youve never heard before. By John Coltrane. Humans,of all theanimal species on this